Saturday, July 09, 2005

Jay Ladin, "Family Tree"

Most of the poems in Jay Ladin's Alternatives to History are too long to type up here, but here's a short and particularly haunting one--not entirely representative (it's much bleaker, more mordant, than most of the book), but haunting.

Family Tree

In the black heartOf a black yearThe food runs outAnd the family strandedOn the small stone shelf

The ledge is strewnWith bones and scrapsNo one will cleanAnd no one will confessTo eating grandma's eyes

Just in timeAncestors arriveGnawing its rootsThe family survives

What exactly this is a parable of, I'm not sure-- But parable it surely is, and scarily so. Hmmm... Maybe next time I have to participate in a panel discussion on Jewish Continuity, I'll read it, just to see what happens.

Brrrr... Such a sweet, sweet man, Jay Ladin (I met him, once). I'll post more on the rest of this book, including about its suite of poems on "The Situation," written during his stay in Israel some years ago, soon.